Our society’s double standards in the application of due process

We live in a strange era. An era of deep polarization of views. An era of flagrant contradictions. An era of erosion of principles of justice.

My husband, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born and raised in Syria, faced a public trial in 2002 while he was the victim of extraordinary rendition initiated by U.S. authorities with the complicity of Canadian law enforcement as well as Jordanian and Syrian authorities, official and de facto allies of the U.S. war on terror.

When my husband was given a paper in his U.S. cell stating that he had been arrested because of his alleged association with Al-Qaeda, he didn’t get a lawyer or day in court. He was transported in the middle of the night to an airport where a private jet, known as a ghost plane, flew him to Amman, Jordan. But many people in Canada believed that the U.S. couldn’t be mistaken, people who included politicians, journalists and regular Canadian citizens.

When former U.S. president George W. Bush infamously said in 2001, “you are either with us or with the terrorists,” he knew that many people would fall into the new fault line he created. Indeed, despite many disagreeing with Bush, many also listened to him. He created a clash of civilizations, and in a way he succeeded.

If Twitter and Facebook existed at that time, I have no doubt there would have been campaigns calling my husband a terrorist and demands to keep him in Syria to “rot with the terrorists.” Actually, even without social media, those “calls” were relayed by politicians, and journalists and media.

Amidst all this confusion and cacophony, one thing saved my husband: the principle of due process. Not that it was offered to him — I fought with supporters to bring it back to him.

I kept telling people around me that if my husband was guilty of any wrongdoing, he should be brought back to Canada and face justice. Deporting him to a Syrian prison and keeping him there wouldn’t serve any justice.

The notion of due process allowed the most skeptical to listen. Applying the argument of due process to a “suspected terrorist” helped my husband escape a possible death and a very likely life of torture and misery in a Syrian gulag.

There are two direct and serious implications of the 9/11 attacks. The first is the justification of torture as a tool for extracting information from Muslim suspects, with the normalization and “branding” of the ticking bomb scenario by the likes of Alan Dershowitz. The second is the entrenchment of the “war on terror” narrative in public discourse, leading to the disappearance of the principle of due process for Muslim suspects.

From the moment the suspect is arrested until the time he faces the justice system, he has already been tried in the public arena by politicians, journalists and pseudo experts, who most of the time make speculations that are presented as absolute truth. When the time comes for a trial, public opinion has already chosen its side: usually incrimination of the terrorist suspect.

When Hassan Diab, a Canadian citizen suspected of participating in the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris, was arrested in 2006, the notion of due process was not held up for him.

For many, he was already considered guilty. His descent as a Muslim Arab from Lebanon made him a culprit before getting a fair and open trial. Even when a Canadian judge in Ottawa examined the extradition demand from Canada to France, and admitted that the evidence were shaky and flimsy, he still ruled for his extradition. Many blamed it on our extradition laws. They claimed that the judge had his hands tied by the low threshold for extradition in Canada. I concede that point. But not totally. I would argue that the whole anti-Muslim, anti-Arab climate paved the way for such a decision. Why do we gamble with the innocence of someone who has everything working against him, for whom public opinion is shaped by the narrative of terrorism and being “either with us or the terrorists,” and judge him guilty or just ignore his plight?

Today, even the #MeToo movement seems affected by this terrorism fault line.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Tariq Ramadan, a prominent, Swiss-born theologian and scholar of Islam, was accused by two French women of rape. Despite going on his own volition to the police and being cooperative with the investigation, he was immediately arrested and put in prison without even visits from his family. Clearly, due process wasn’t deemed necessary in this case. In my opinion, his ethnic background and religion stripped him of this legal principle. His legal and media treatment today is very similar to what Muslim terrorist suspects would receive. Even his incarceration in solitary confinement in Fleury-Mérogis prison is highly symbolic since this is a prison where many Muslims suspected of terrorism have been held, including Hassan Diab.

Yeas ago, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund and poised at the time to be a strong candidate for the French presidency, was accused by a Manhattan hotel worker of sexual assault. Many of his social and political connections stood by him, defended him publicly and claimed that his sexual misconduct (and other later discovered crimes) were a sign of his virility and sex appeal. Later he was acquitted of all accusations of pimping, rape and sexual assault, and now some even speculate about his political comeback.

In 2012, Glen Greenwald, wrote a book entitled With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. In the book, Greenwald focuses on cases of financial fraud, domestic spying and torture in the U.S. and how some corporations and individuals are evading justice and accountability because of their power and money. Today, the same can be seen not only in the U.S. but also around the world when it comes to terrorism or sexual accusations. Your ethnicity, religion and social status will determine whether the same legal principles are applied to you.

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7 thoughts on “Our society’s double standards in the application of due process”

Shaheen

I am with you Monia 100% on these double standards. What hurts me most is that they exist EVEN in Muslim countries (where God Almighty says in The Book “To uphold justice”. There is NO humanity left in this world. God help us all.

Thank you for this post. I have been waiting for months to see someone in North America to speak against the travesty of justice Dr. tariq Ramadan is experiencing.
I have even wtitten to few scholars such as Imam Suhaib Wen, Ingrid Mattson, Hamza Yusuf, Yusif islam (Cat Stevens). it is so sad and disappointing to see the hypocrisy we live in: these are scholars who preach about islam but don’t practice what they preach.
They can’t take few minutes of their timel to join the fight & help him.
Naima,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canads

Indeed most of these self proclaimed sheikhs are afraid and care more about their careers and the size of their “fans” than denouncing injustice. In a way, I am not surprised as many of them have been silent in the past about other issues like Guantanamo or Black Lives Matters.

Apology for the typos in my previous post, caused by the malfunction of my old iPhone combined with the French keyboard I’m not used to in Algeria where . I meant to say the following:
“Thank you for this post. I have been waiting for months to see someone in North America speak against the travesty of justice Dr. Tariq Ramadan is experiencing.
I have even written to few scholars such as Imam Suhaib Webb, Ingrid Mattson, Hamza Yusuf, Yusuf islam (Cat Stevens) to name just a few.
It is so sad and disappointing to see the hypocrisy we live in: these are scholars who preach about islam but don’t practice what they preach.
They can’t take few minutes of their time to join the fight & help him.
Naima,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I have just read your article for the 3rd time since it was first published in March. I admire your courage and honesty. Your unwavering support for Dr. Tariq ramadan is admirable. It took few months for the rest of the personalities to voice their concern about his unjust detention nd treatment by the French Judiciary system and media.

About me

My name is Monia Mazigh. I am an author, novelist and a human rights advocate. I write on political affairs and on topics I feel strongly about like Canadian politics, terrorism, national security and women in Islam. I write in English and French. More …